Mothwoman by Nicole Cushing

Author:Nicole Cushing [Cushing, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-22T18:56:47+00:00

8

The Orion Ballroom is a nightmare. A black smudge covers the full length of the ceiling. Could be oil or mold or soot. On top of this background, someone has spray painted a monstrous excess of pentagrams. A chorus line of pentagrams. Gold pentagrams. Row after row of them. Sixty-six, by my reckoning. The Homerealmers are sending a message: “The trail ends here.”

It all looks hastily done. None of the pentagrams were painted with geometric precision. Not a single equilateral polygon in the mix! They look like the sort of pentagrams I drew when I was a little girl.

(Well, I didn’t exactly draw pentagrams as a child. I drew stars. What I mean is, I didn’t set out to draw pentagrams. I set out to draw stars. It just so happened that the only way I could depict stars was to draw pentagrams! In fact, even to this day, if you were to ask me to draw a star I would crank out a sloppy pentagram.)

I have just come up with a theory that may explain the aliens’ artistic failure: to the Homerealmers, a black, starlit sky holds no beauty. No more, at least, than a black asphalt road with a yellow stripe painted down the middle. Spacetime is simply the road on which they travel. To them, the night sky possesses no grandeur, no aspect of the transcendent. Thus, they put little effort into its depiction.

That is clearly the truth.

Well, actually, it might not be true. It’s only true if I’m correct in my assumption that the Orion Ceiling depicts the night sky. I mean, it would only be logical for that to be the case. But I suppose they could just be pentagrams (by which I mean devil signs, not stars). Remember, there are sixty-six pentagrams. I can’t believe that’s a coincidence! Yes, the black background might have been intended to darken the room and convey a sense of foreboding. The gold paint might be meant to convey the preciousness of Satan.

But aliens can’t be Satanists, right? They wouldn’t decorate with occult symbols, would they? I just don’t know.

And yet, a ceiling connoisseur should know. A ceiling connoisseur only has one job: to critique the aesthetic value of ceilings. To perform this job, she must first have a general idea of the ceiling-painter’s intent. How embarrassing, to be puzzled in this case! I must reach a state of clarity on the matter. So, I nudge Whitey Mare with my elbow. Direct his attention to the object of my obsession. Whisper my question, so I don’t draw attention. “Are those supposed to be occult symbols, or are they just poorly-rendered stars?”

Whitey Mare rolls his eyes. “You’re weird,” he says. He sounds a lot like my mother when he says this. My Earthly Mother, I mean. He hasn’t sounded old before. He hasn’t sounded like a woman before. But when he says that phrase he sounds exactly like my mom.

Then his voice returns to normal. “Time to pay attention, Nid.

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